24. Olly #3
“There’s no time. Clark, your flight has landed, and the crew was unable to rouse you.
They called for medics, so you better wake up and start acting normally, or you won’t be able to eventually help Olly escape.
You’ve probably already noticed that time is not a fixed concept here.
Clark, when you wake up, it will be in the airplane hangar in Montréal.
Olly, you’ll be two months ahead of him, just starting your eighth month of pregnancy.
You know what that means. Tonight will be the night, if the head of The Organization can get to you on time.
And Bea, don’t worry. I’ll get you back home, too. ”
I had a million questions, but Thomas was practically frothing at the mouth to get Clark and me out of here, and that kind of urgency coming from my brother was rare.
I had to trust him and his instincts, and though trust from me was hard-earned, this was my brother.
If I couldn’t trust him, who could I trust?
“I’ll see you guys soon,” I said before my eyes opened on a very different scene.
The hospital. At least it was a place I understood and had a plan to get the hell out.
Something was off, I could tell right away, and then quickly caught on that I was in the mind of Nurse Elizabeth, and I had no idea how.
I never could project myself fully inside someone else’s mind.
Then again, I had never really tried. I thought it to be a major ethical violation of a person’s right to privacy.
I had learned that sometimes to survive, I needed to skim the surface, and I felt bad enough about that, but this was on another level.
I went to pull back, but Bea, the baby I carried, urged me to hang on just for a moment.
Then I heard her, Elizabeth, her voice in my head and all around me.
“Forgive me, Olly, for this taking so damn long. Dr. Bell was attacked, and the security around here got very intense for a while even though we identified Gabriel as the one who got her. Exactly like you said, right to the colour of the toothbrush. I told myself when I put you in here that it was just going to be for a few hours or overnight at worst, but I didn’t know they’d chemically restrain you.
Now, I’ve shut off that drip, and I’ll be leaving the garden entrance unlocked the next three nights that I’m working.
Hopefully, Nurse Bitchface won’t be checking on you in here, but if she is, all she will see is the same number of IV bags, and you, looking like this... ”
She cut off a sob and picked up a bed bath package and ripped it open.
Normally, it would be the job of a continuing care assistant to keep a patient on bed rest clean, not a registered nurse like herself, but she wanted to do this one thing for me, because she felt she could be gentle, and because she felt the need to atone for her being complicit in getting me here in this torture cell.
As she carefully unbuttoned the hospital garb I was in, I saw what she saw, just for a moment until I recoiled and almost shut down the link.
I was sickly pale, with dark circles under both eyes.
My body looked like it had shrunk, except for the bump, which was huge and looked about ready to pop.
I was also covered in bruises and red marks.
I didn’t look like I was sick. I looked like I was a victim of torture who was about to die.
I could feel her saying again, this time right into my ear.
“Remember, the garden entrance. It won’t be locked.
You have to go as soon as you can get out of this bed, because they spoke about moving you to the Forensic Hospital in Dartmouth.
That’s got to be a load of shit because you don’t belong there.
I don’t know where they are taking you, but it can’t be anywhere good.
I have to get back to my rounds, but you should know what you need to do from here on out.
I’ll bring you a tote bag of some things.
A change of clothes and shoes, and some money, tonight after my shift. ”
The images dimmed and then, like watching a movie almost, I was back in Elizabeth’s mind, silently crying as two beefy security guards were watching her clear out her things from the break room and heard her final plea, “Let me at least go and say goodbye to my patients. I’ve grown quite fond of them, and...
” In her hand was a tote bag that had in it warm clothes, cash, my wallet with my ID, and some fruit and milk.
The bigger guard shook his head. “No damn way. You getting too cozy with the patients is why you’ve been terminated, effective immediately.
We’re here to get you off hospital grounds, not run a weepy goodbye tour through this unit.
You’ve got your shit collected, so march.
” The front entrance to the unit buzzed as the door was opened, and I pulled out of her mind as quickly as I could.
I saw her tuck the tote discreetly under the table she was standing beside in the break room, and her hope that I was spying, so I’d know to come get it if possible.
Goddess, I hoped I would remember all of this when I woke up in that unit, hopefully with that garden side door unlocked.